Serhiy Marchenko to Head Ukraine's Finance Ministry

Serhiy Marchenko has eventually been appointed the new finance minister at the second vote of the extraordinary parliamentary session on March 30.

This comes a few hours after the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine discharged Ihor Umansky from the position.

READ MORE: Ukraine's Parliament Dismisses Umansky, but Finance Minister Position Remains Vacant

256 deputies voted for Marchenko's appointment the second time with just three votes lacking on the first attempt.

The previous head of the ministry of finance spent just 26 days in his position. In the meantime, he has been able to prepare changes to the state budget set to combat the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which proposes to reduce government spending on a range of programs, reduce budget revenues by 123 billion hryvnias ($4.4 billion) and create a fund to fight coronavirus by 97 billion hryvnias ($3.5 billion).

But it will be up to the new Minister of Finance, Serhiy Marchenko, to implement the changes.

Marchenko is 39 years old. He was born in the Kyiv region, graduated from the Academy of the State Tax Service (now the University of the State Fiscal Service), which is now subordinated to the Ministry of Finance.

Marchenko has been working in the civil service since 2002 – in the tax authorities and the finance ministry.

Since 2011, Marchenko has worked at the Reform Coordination Center under the President of Ukraine and participated in the drafting of the budget code adopted in 2014. He also collaborated with Bendukidze Free Market Center and the Kyiv School of Economics.

In 2016, he became deputy for the Minister of Finance Oleksandr Danyliuk. After the resignation of the latter in 2018, he went to work in the Presidential Administration of Petro Poroshenko where he was deputy chairman.

READ MORE: Ukrainian Parliament Registers Bills to Dismiss Health Minister Yemets, Finance Minister Umansky

In 2019, Marchenko resigned from the PA and ran for the parliament. He was number 7 on the list of Volodymyr Groysman's party Ukrainian Strategy, which failed to get the required number of votes to enter the new convocation of the parliament.

Marchenko holds a Master's degree in Public Finance Management and a Ph.D. in Economics. His dissertation, which he defended in 2009, is related to the government issue of Eurobonds in foreign financial markets.